“The Doom of God cometh to pass.”
-Sura XVI, The Bee
Doom Once Come
He had run a mere half-mile, stripped, bagged the clothes, donned his hated I-wish-I-were-a-Whiteman suit, and then walked a mile to meet Brother Qwawi in his old time conversion van. The bag of clothes had been placed in a shopping cart next to the Jones Falls, beneath the Jones Falls Expressway, soaked with a gallon of gasoline, and set alight within the hour—lighting the night sky like a sacrifice to ancestors unremembered.
It was the correct procedure. They will not come knocking, not come kicking in the doors with their SWAT getup. They do not even know I reside in their den of iniquity.
He woke, his heart pounding, drenched in sweat, laying in a full inch of his own shedding guilt—his heart uncharacteristically racing.
Arbese. I killed you, Arbese, yet you live within me.
He covered his face in shame, as the wonderstruck eyes of the confused little boy who would never grow to manhood looked up at him like he was The Man, like he was The White Devil! An ice cold chill now crawled up his spine.
I need to vomit.
No, a warrior does not purge like a woman, ever. Choke on it and die if you cannot keep it down!
It needed to be done, Kismet requires a messenger.
He was not like the others, stood apart. He might have been innocent!
Guilt by association remains guilt!
The tussle with his own conscience abated the nausea, but did not free his mind. He found himself with paper towels and cleaning wipes trying to wipe away his own inescapable guilt from the judo mattress, furiously mumbling, “Shall the infidels have no permission to make excuses, and they shall find no favor”.
This mantra sounded empty though in the cavern once occupied by his heart. In his secret inner mind, with his secret inner voice, he chanted another mantra, Arbese. Arbese. Arbese…
Guilt’s Heretical Haji
He stood beneath the towering structure, which was, like his insignificant human form, surrounded by taller buildings of more base kind, things grossly greater yet substantially less. The air was alive with the sound of dead men driving, the concrete path at his feet vibrating with their pointless progress up the busy street behind him.
Arbese—the church in your neighborhood has likely been fled by its pale flock. The black Christian churches are just imitations of this ancient lie, and besides offer no anonymity for your killer.
This will do; a grand example of its kind.
He looked up to see the stonework and the stained glass, suffusing his hatred for the minds behind this edifice with his own vast guilt.
Besides, great, great, great, Great Grandma was raped by a Methodist, not a Catholic.
These were not slave owners by and large. They had been the old, weak, guilty whites, this attributed to by their odd tradition you so seek.
Is it not grand, Arbese?
The pigeons certainly approve of the architecture.
He breeched the awesome doorway and entered the sanctum of European pagan fetish, lined with its dead art haunting the walls like specters looking down from an age of horrific myth, the oaken benches marching in columns up to the sacrificial altar.
A chill of superstitious dread grabbed at his gut.
Is that the Mandingo or the Piscataway in you that cringes before these conquests of the soul?
Perhaps it is you, Arbese. Was Great Grandmamma a Catholic or more likely a Baptist?
I understand your silence, Son. I did you the final wrong, after all.
He was dressed in his ‘deceptive white manner,’ hoping that would shield him some from the evil raining down from the carven images. He reluctantly took the first row on the outside. He had gone on a scouting mission against this most ancient white cult in his youth, and recalled the layout. Yet it seemed utterly alien to him.
Recorded organ music was playing.
Incense was smoldering.
Shadows flickered, though the fierce light of a summer day reigned outside of this place.
A priest in ancient vestments busied himself.
Two old white ladies occupied this grand church.
A mass was said, which he closed his ears to, chanting his soundless mantra within his pained mind, Arbese, Arbese, Arbese.
Eventually, the service over, an old lady advanced to some candle station, whereupon she placed coins in a box, lit a candle, and then headed to the confessional. The priest soon disappeared into the adjacent box.
The woman and priest stayed within for some time.
How long can this take—what evil might this old woman have done?
The priest emerged first, to his surprise, glancing at Akbar, who nodded to the confessional. The priest returned the nod with affirmative eyes, with no signs of the displeasure or sense of impropriety that Akbar might have expected.
The Guilt Box
They stood regarding one another until the woman emerged. Akbar then strode to the box with his head down and entered. It was only possible to stand or kneel in this chamber of guilt. He wished to be quietly heard by he who he knew would come and sit in the adjacent box. He knelt reluctantly before the screen that he assumed one spoke through.
Within a moment the white holy man entered and took his seat. Akbar knew there would be some kind of formalized statement by this pale-skinned witchdoctor that would anger him, so he spoke immediately, “I am not your son, so call me not that. I am not of your faith, so I ask no absolution. I have sinned, I believe, against something greater than my faith—such as it is—and seek only an understanding ear, an ear more akin to the family of he who I wronged, for he haunts me.”
There was a considered pause.
The voice was soft, barely male; serene, “I understand. You may speak in confidence of your sin, mindful that your conscience shall not sanction a repetition of your wrong. I personally mind my conscience as an echo of the Holy Voice.”
An uncomfortable pause lingered.
“Go on. You are not to be judged by this man.”
He felt his lips curl under his nose and his face narrow.
“I have avenged a girl’s rape by a gang—avenged it most terribly. There was one I might have spared, who looked up into me with unforgettable eyes, eyes that I cannot erase from my mind. I did not spare him despite the plea in his bright eyes. Dead though he is, he lingers within me.”
He was feeling uncomfortable with all of this talk, much more talk than he normally engaged in in a day, running away at the mouth being the universal addiction of fools as it was. He had an urge to unburden.
No Arbese, this is not really for you, and you know it, don’t you?
The priest remained patiently sitting, obviously studied at listening to his flock unburden themselves.
“I had some thought, that him perhaps being nominally Christian, you might gain for him some consideration with his God. This thought was childish. The thought that I would accept the forgiveness of your God was likewise childish. I now understand that I blindly sought you to unburden my guilt. I feel the less for it now—do not follow. And please, Whiteman, forget my face.”
He could smell the fear. He thought, before emerging from the guilt box, that the fear had emanated from the Whiteman behind the screen. As he marched down the church stairs, turned the corner, and hailed a cab, he realized that the stench of fear came from him, from Akbar Qama—or is it that not-yet-dead part-Indian comic artist stinking me up with his fear?
Is it you, Arbese, still terrified in my mind’s eye, hurtling to hell as you are?
He was now sitting in the cab. No witnesses had followed from the church, but there might be a street camera. He directed the cabby to take him to Curtis Bay, the most wretched den of godless white devils in this wretched town. From there he would walk by untraceable ways beyond view of the Whiteman’s cameras, would return to his sanctuary again; return to the Great Knife on the wall of Usef Ali’s study, and purge the demon that was gnawing on his soul.
I am afire with fear. It will consume me if I do not master it.
Judge me, Arbese, judge me from your searing perch in my craw.
The cabbie looked at him through his review mirror. The man was Pakistani and spoke in a considerate tone, “You are Muslim, yes?”
He felt his face cool, felt his abdomen tighten into a deathly coil, felt his old strength return, as he returned a look into the mirror that quashed any further attempts at conversation.
Indeed, what am I?
What have I become?
Who, Arbese, are we?
